Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Most Delicious Cookbook In The World


Remember last week when I was talking about the fab new cookbook I found in the store that I was going to go back and buy? Well I went back and bought it. I haven't even made any of the recipes yet and I love it already, LOL.

It's most definitely a dessert book (no practical meals here!) but the recipes are exactly as the title says: Old Fashioned. Of course, Aussie 'old fashioned' and US 'old fashioned' are probably quite different (smile). And therefore probably not all that useful to my American readers (especially with that nasty metric system and all!) However I'm sure you will revel in my joy at the discovery of this cookbook just the same. When I get around to making something I'll review it and post the recipe (and even do the conversions for you...because I'm that kind of blog host).

For all those overseas, the Women's Weekly is, ironically, the matriach of all monthly women's mags down here. It's been around for about a kajillion years and you'd be hard pressed to find an Australian housewife who doesn't own one of their (very extensive range of) cookbooks, of which this title is one. I've probably got about ten, LOL.

Some of the recipes I'm dying to make:

Anzac Biscuits (cookies, as far as I can tell, this is where my MIL gleamed 'her' recipe from! They're identical!)
Chocolate Caramel Slice
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Hedgehog Slice (chocolate slice with cookie pieces)
Honey Jumbles (like a gingerbread cookie with icing on top)
Melting Moments
Raspberry Coconut Slice
Gingernuts
Traditional Shortbread

Vanilla Slice (vanilla custard sandwiched between two pastry layers and covered in passionfruit icing)
Gingerbread Cake
Basic Scones (like American biscuits)
Basic Butter Cake
Marble Cake

Patty Cakes (cupcakes)
Chocolate Cake
Coconut Cake
Dark Chocolate Mudcake
Caramel Mudcake

White Mudcake
Apple Streusel Cake
Lamingtons
(an Aussie icon)
Berry Muffins
Orange Cake
Rock Cakes
(a recipe synonymous with my mother..and btw, rock cakes don't look or taste like rocks!)
Banana Cake with Passionfruit Icing
Golden Syrup Dumplings (one of those great 'made from thin air' pantry recipes)
Apple Pie
Banoffee Pie

Apple Crumble
Lemon Delicious Pudding
Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding

Self-Saucing Caramel Pudding
Vanilla Bean Icecream

Okay, so that's like two thirds of the index, LOL, but it should give you an indication of how much I've been salivating since I brought it home!

For Australians, these are the recipes we were most likely raised on. Most of them use ordinary ingredients, the kind of thing you can just whip up on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I'm dying to get cracking on this list but I can't! From Friday we're away so posts might be a bit scarce again for a bit. Apologies for that (and for absence the last few days - houseguests!) but with any luck the crazy few months I've had will begin to settle down around about the time we get back and I get dip my toes a little deeper into the bloggityville pool again. I've gone AWOL on all my blog carnivals lately and I've got loads to say, especially on the May Day Weight Loss Challenge front. However, that will have to wait for another post as I'm off to wipe the drool off my chin and plan a big cook-fest for a couple of weeks from now...

P.S. Can someone please help me figure out what's going on with not being able to put up a post title? I can't even click in the Title field on the 'create post' page in Blogger...

Cheers,
Lizzie

9 comments:

Kin said...

Good going Lizzie.

You'll get a kick out of this. On our holiday to the UK, we stopped at Gretna Green (cause I love it!) and there's a huge food hall, with all sorts of specialist Scottish food. Deciding early on I wanted to collect Cookbooks from each country we went to, I headed off in search of the Scottish Cookbooks. Imagine my surprise to find the ENTIRE cookbook section made up ENTIRELY of AUSTRALIAN WOMENS WEEKLY Cookbooks. I nearly died laughing, and the perplexed Scottish shop assistants came and asked me if I was ok. They saw the irony in the situation also.

I did eventually get me a Scottish recipe book from the bookshop at Edinburgh Castle.

Kin said...

PS. I'm having trouble entering a heading too. Usually if I bash the mouse enough, change fields a few times it works well enough. Technical aren't I?

lightening said...

Hey Lizzie! :-) I had to laugh at your long list of recipes you want to try. You never do things by halves do you? You will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book (you won't regret buying it at all - except when you step on the scales lol). I was given a copy as an Engagement Present from a Home Economics teacher and it is really good.

I'm sure it's my DH's favourite book in the whole house. LOL. He's even cooked a couple of things out of it.

I look forward to reading some of your adventures but I will warn you.... it's a bit like Hillbilly Housewife's Brownies! :-)

Kez said...

I don't know what they've done to the Title field lately but if you click right up on the top line - almost above the title - it puts the mouse in there. It takes a few tries!

Lizzie said...

Thanks guys re the title thing
...

...and LOL, yes, I'm known for my over-the-top-ness at times. This list will probably take me right through till Christmas though! LOL.

Cheers,
Lizzie

MellissaD said...

They had a couple of those recipes in a recent issue of Women's Weekly and my Mum made the patty cakes and they were sooooooo good. I ate 8 in 2 days *blush*

Kay said...

Kez is right about putting your mouse over the top line and clicking so you can enter a title for your post. This happened to me yesterday and I thought it had something to do with my switching to a 3-column.

Thanks Lizzie for all your info! I'll try to get a post put up soon about adding a picture to your header.

Scattered Mom said...

Hey Lizzie I just got some news....

A pre-quel for the Anne of Green Gables movies is in the works, they are holding tryouts across Canada.

My neice is going to the auditions.

Cool, huh?

Lizzie said...

Good lord, a prequel? Know anything about the storyline?

Yes, I am tragic, LOL.

Cheers,
Lizzie
(writing from laptop which I took with me on holiday....)

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